Allen Erskine, MD of Sycadex Ltd, explains how to tell if an organisation's stated values are
necessarily related to its underlying culture...
Every professionally managed organisation has their set of values, which sit alongside their mission and
vision as a guide to direct thinking, activity and behaviour. If done right, these values will already be
based upon input from the organisation's people and their views on what type of organisation they want to
work in. There will also be a clear link between the organisation's stated values and its reason for being,
the mission.
But how do we know to what extent these values are really embedded in the organisation? The well referenced
MIT Professor, Edgar Schein, differentiates between 'artifacts', 'espoused values' and 'basic underlying
assumptions'. Artifacts include many of the visible, outward signs that the organisation's leaders implement
as an expression of their preferred values, such as office layout, uniforms, charitable support activities,
etc. Espoused values are those directly communicated in values statements, strategies and public pronouncements.
Basic underlying assumptions are the most deep-rooted elements of the organisation's culture and, as such,
are the hardest to define. As many change agents will know, these underlying cultural norms also have the
greatest influence on behaviour and are the hardest to change.
So how can we identify these basic underlying assumptions? Identity Structure Analysis (ISA) is an approach
developed over 30 years ago by Peter Weinreich, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Ulster.
Professor Weinreich's work has spanned many different cultural environments, including immigration, race
relations, female returnees-to-work and entrepreneurship. Sycadex has developed dedicated software around
his approach, which allows the design and implementation of practical instruments to capture inputs from
individuals, and construct models of organisational culture on which practical organisational development
programmes can be built.
ISA operates by analysing the interplay between the many different individuals and groups that make up an
organisation in the context of a range of value-based constructs. Data is gathered on the individual
respondent's personal preferences and ideals, and on their beliefs with regard to other 'entities' within
their organisation. These 'entities' might be colleagues, managers, the organisation itself, people they
like and dislike, even specific named individuals. By analysing the similarities and variations across these
personal preferences and evaluations of others, we can build a clear map of the individual's cultural
perspectives in their workplace. And by combining the feedback from a representative sample of individuals,
we can build a map of the real underlying corporate culture as defined by the people working in it.
ISA provides the analyst with directly comparable measures of culture on which clear action can be taken.
At the simplest level, it can identify the extent or otherwise to which a shared set of values or culture
exists within the organisation. Data can be cut many ways, for example, by management level, function or
time in the business. Specific sub-cultures can be identified and interorganisational differences can be
better understood.
ISA is now being used to guide recruitment and development activity, with the aim of finding people that
share many of the true, underlying cultural norms of the organisation (hire for attitude, train for skill).
It is also being used to support integration activities in situations where different teams are thrown
together and where the inevitable clashes of culture have occurred, specifically in departmental mergers
and rationalisations.
Most importantly, leaders are using ISA to identify the extent to which their espoused values are actually
shared across the organisation and are actively guiding behaviour. Values that are not shared in this manner
are soon relegated to the organisational dustbin and can actually work against organisational unity.
